…in His description of the inhabitants of the Fire:

“I shall soon cast him into Saqar. And what will make you understand what Saqar is? It neither spares nor leaves anything; it scorches the very skin. Over it are nineteen [keepers]. We have appointed none but angels as wardens of the Fire, and We have fixed their number only as a test for those who disbelieve, so that the People of the Scripture may be certain, the believers may grow in faith, the People of the Scripture and the believers may not doubt, and so that those in whose hearts is a disease, as well as the disbelievers, may say, ‘What does Allah mean by this example?’ Thus Allah leads astray whom He wills and guides whom He wills. None knows your Lord’s hosts except He. It is but a reminder to mankind.” (Q 74:26-31)

He, Exalted is He, also says:

“Then let him summon his council; We shall summon the zabaniyah.” (Q 74:17)

More than one Companion and Follower—among them Abu Hurayrah, ʿAbd Allah ibn al-Harith, and ʿAṭāʾ—said, “They are the angels.” Qatadah remarked, “In Arabic, zabaniyah means the police or guards,” while Muqatil said, “They are the keepers of Hell.” Linguists such as Ibn Qutaybah explained that the term is derived from the root z-b-n, meaning “to drive or push,” as though they drive the people of the Fire toward it. Ibn Durayd added: “Zabn means to push away; a she-camel is called zabūn if, when being milked, she pushes the milker with her leg. When people ‘tazābanū,’ they repel one another. Hence zabaniyah comes from that same root.”

Moreover, in the two Ṣaḥīḥ collections, through several chains, the Prophet (peace and blessings be upon him) related, on the night of the Miʿrāj, what he witnessed of the angels, Paradise, and Hell. He also informed us about the Bayt al-Maʿmūr, into which seventy thousand angels enter every day, never to return once their turn has passed.

What the Quran, the prophetic hadiths, and the statements of the early generations contain concerning the angels and their states is beyond enumeration—and the same holds true for what is found among the followers of the Torah, the Gospel, and the other prophets’ revelations.